Jewish History Nerds

Please take a few minutes to fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Winning the war was one thing. Becoming citizens was another. In Part 2, Yael and Schwab follow the colonies' 2,500 Jews from revolution to ratification, as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights turned religious liberty from a favor into a right. Not tolerance. Citizenship. N...

Please take a few minutes to fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! A broker who bankrolled the Continental Army and died penniless. An officer who refused pork in a British prison. A bill sent to George Washington for a missing fork. In Part 1 of Jews and the American Revolution, Yael and Schwab explore how the colonies' 2,500 Jews helped shape...

Please take a few minutes to fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Well over a century before the Declaration of Independence, a boatload of Jewish refugees landed in New Amsterdam with no money, no synagogue, and a governor who desperately wanted them gone. What followed was a century of scrappy survival — building communities in port cities from...

Were there really Jewish pirates in the Caribbean? The answer is far more complicated (and fascinating) than the legend. From Samuel Pallache, the so-called Pirate Rabbi, to the thriving Jewish communities of Curaçao and beyond. Schwab walks Yael through the story of Jews navigating empire, trade, exile, and opportunity in the Americas. This is the second episode in a mini series on Jews in the Am...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Fleeing the Inquisition, Crypto-Jews who had been forced to hide their faith for generations found refuge in Recife, Brazil — and for the first time, rebuilt Jewish life in the open. When Recife fell, twenty-three Jewish refugees set sail for New Amsterdam, launching the birth of Jewish America. Schwa...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Jewish History Nerds welcomes its first-ever guest, Noam Weissman, host of Unpacking Israeli History. Yael, Schwab and Noam explore the life and legacy of Yitzhak Rabin through the lens of Itamar Rabinovich's Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman from the Jewish Lives series. Rabin's life is the s...

June 12th marks Anne Frank’s birthday, and it was on her 13th birthday that she received the diary that would later become one of the most widely read books in the world. Anne Frank remains one of the most recognizable voices in Jewish history, and one of the most misunderstood. In this bonus episode sponsored by the Jewish Lives series from Yale University Press, Schwab walks Yael through Ruth Fr...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Few figures in all of Jewish history are as celebrated, as contradicted, and as human as King David. But how well do we really know him? We're kicking off new bonus episodes in partnership with the Jewish Lives series from Yale University Press by going back to the Hebrew Bible. Drawing from Rabbi Dav...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Yael and Schwab are back — and this season, they're diving into the history of Jews in the Americas, just in time for the US's 250th birthday. But first: special episodes sponsored by The Jewish Lives Series. Catch up on past episodes, subscribe wherever you listen. If you like this show, please rate...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Yael and Schwab revisit the remarkable story of the Oneg Shabbos archive from the Warsaw Ghetto in honor of Yom HaShoah. The tins held the second of three caches of the Oneg Shabbos archives: a collection by ordinary people turned archivists who risked their lives to preserve the darkest moment of Jew...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! The Haggadah is the most widely read Jewish book in the world, and yet it was never supposed to be a book at all. Yael takes Schwab through its surprising history: how an oral commandment became rabbinic debate, evolved into illuminated medieval manuscripts, and ended up as 60 million free copies tuck...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Jonathan Schwab and Yael Steiner tackle one of Jewish history's most debated questions: was Albert Einstein a Zionist? From Nazi Germany naming him public enemy number one to eventually being offered the presidency of Israel, Schwab traces Einstein's complicated, lifelong relationship with Zionism. An...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Before Albert Einstein became the wild-haired icon who changed how we understand the universe, he was a struggling patent clerk with a rejected dissertation, no job prospects, and a messy personal life. But he had time to spare and a mind that wouldn't stop. In this first episode of a two-part series,...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Ray Frank was a gifted Jewish teacher, journalist, and speaker who became a sensation in the American West in the 1890s. Crowds packed opera houses to hear her preach, newspapers called her the “Girl Rabbi of the Golden West,” and communities begged her to lead them. But Ray Frank refused the title of...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! What happens when a rabbi becomes a compulsive gambler? Yael and Schwab explore the life of Rabbi Leone de Modena, a remarkable Renaissance thinker from the Venetian ghetto. A prodigy, prolific writer, and the author of the first full-length Hebrew autobiography, Modena was also a famous preacher whos...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! What happens when trauma reshapes religious life, and suffering itself becomes sacred? This week, Jonathan Schwab introduces Yael Steiner to the Hasidei Ashkenaz, a small but intense medieval movement that emerged in 12th–13th century Germany after the Crusades of 1096. Living in the shadow of violenc...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! In 1953, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were sent to the electric chair. They were condemned by a Jewish judge, and executed on a Friday night. The charge: espionage. The backdrop: Cold War hysteria. This week, Yael Steiner and Jonathan Schwab reframe the story. Yael explores the Jewish response to the...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! In 1609, Rivka Tiktiner did something no Jewish woman had ever done before: she published a book. Meneket Rivka, printed in Prague, is the earliest surviving full-length work by a Jewish woman—written in Yiddish yet steeped in serious Torah scholarship. This week on Jewish History Nerds, Jonathan Sc...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Leon Trotsky’s name gets thrown around a lot—but the story behind it is darker and stranger than most realize. This week, Yael Steiner walks Schwab through Trotsky’s rise from an assimilated Jewish childhood in Ukraine to revolution, Lenin’s inner circle, and the founding of the Red Army. From a rev...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! This week, Jewish History Nerds explores the extraordinary story of Portugal’s secret Jews—families forced into hiding who preserved Judaism for centuries after the Inquisition. Through Samuel Schwarz’s accidental 1925 discovery, Jonathan Schwab and Yael Steiner reveal whispered prayers, hidden ritu...

Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Yael Steiner and Jonathan Schwab are back for a new season of Jewish History Nerds, starting with the remarkable story of Janusz Korczak—the Jewish-Polish pediatrician and educator who insisted children are full human beings, not “human becomings.” Korczak pioneered radical ideas about children’s ri...

Jewish History Nerds is back! Hosts Jonathan Schwab and Yael Steiner return with a new slate of smart, engaging stories from Jewish history—blending deep research with curiosity, humor, and lively conversation. Each week, they take turns exploring a fascinating figure or moment, asking big questions, learning together, and inviting listeners into the journey. This season spans famous and forgotten...

Season 5 is coming soon. In the meantime, to celebrate Hanukkah, we’re revisiting one of our favorite episodes from our very first season. Ah, Chanukah. That festive time of year where we light candles, indulge in fried foods, and celebrate… a brutal civil war? Join Yael and Schwab as they complicate the story we all thought we knew. What did the Maccabees really fight for? How should we feel abou...

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In this season finale, Yael Steiner and Jonathan Schwab explore the powerful and surprising story of the Jewish National Fund's iconic blue tzedakah box—also known as the JNF "Blue Box." What began as a nostalgic household object for many Jewish families turns out to be one of the most influential and controversial symbols in modern Zionist history. Discover how this simple tin box, known as a "pu...